It's about money!

Byron York reports at the Washington Examiner that Washington state’s vigorous challenge to Trump’s executive order temporarily suspending non-American entry from seven terrorism-plagued countries is more than

high-minded rhetoric about religious liberty and constitutional protections…

There’s money at stake!

Judging by the briefs filed by Washington State, as well as statements made by its representatives, some of the state’s top priorities in challenging Trump are: 1) To ensure an uninterrupted supply of relatively low-wage H-1B foreign workers for Microsoft and other state businesses; 2) To ensure a continuing flow of high-tuition-paying foreign student visa holders; and 3) To preserve the flow of tax revenues that results from those and other sources.

“The technology industry relies heavily on the H-1B visa program,” the Washington State lawsuit said. “Microsoft, a corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, is the state’s top employer of high-tech — or H-1B visa holders and employs nearly 5,000 people through the program. Other Washington-based companies, including Amazon, Expedia, and Starbucks, employ thousands of H-1B visa holders.”

…International students, it turns out, are a major source of revenue for Washington State. “Only three other states — Massachusetts, New York and Delaware — plus the District of Columbia drew a higher percentage of its college population from overseas,” the Seattle Times reported in November 2014. “Washington’s universities and community colleges have welcomed international students, in part, as a boost to their budgets because they pay as much as three times the tuition that in-state students pay.”

Read more here.